


Inevitable

by darkspacelord



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Zim (Invader Zim), Sad, Smeets (Invader Zim), fluff ending, your feelings will be destroyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24070078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkspacelord/pseuds/darkspacelord
Summary: It was always true that Zim would eventually outlive Dib. But he never really thought about it.Until it was too late.And now all the memories have come rushing back.(Note: In this Fic Zim is equivalent to Dib's age)
Relationships: Dib & Zim (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	Inevitable

“You knew it would come eventually, Zim,” Dib said as he laid in his bed, his body frail and his hair turned white. “Humans get old and I presume Irkens do too at some point.”

“We get old but not this soon,” Zim said as he stood by Dib’s side. “Curse humans for being this inferior that they hardly live at all.”

Dib reached out his hand, worn from age, and fiddled with Zim’s antenna. “It will be okay, Zim, you will carry on without me.”

Zim clasped his hand around Dib’s. “But there is still more for us to do. What about Mary and Dob?” He glanced at the portrait sitting on Dib’s table stand. In the picture was Dib and Zim standing next to each other, hand in hand, while two kids stood next to them. They were both slightly green and messy hair covered their heads, but Mary had pink irken eyes while Dob had eyes that looked far more human. They both had antennae that stuck out of their hair, though it was shorter than typical irken antenna, and neither one of them had ears. Mary at least had a bit of a nose  
though it was almost non-existent while Dob had none at all.

“You will take good care of them because I trust you,” Dib said as he coughed. “But you knew one day I would pass. Certainly you made plans for the children.”

Zim nearly said something but the truth was he never really thought about it. It was rare his mind acknowledged anything negative, let alone something as heart-breaking as this. But now, he couldn’t deny it any longer. He had to face the inevitable. 

Zim held Dib’s hand close to him, never wanting to let it go. His mind wandered to all those years they had spent together. Oh how so much has changed ever since he landed on earth. He had once come to destroy this planet and here he was, having spent so much of his life with one of its inhabitants.

But Zim was glad to have landed here. It was what he needed after all. And to think he once almost wished the Tallest had assigned him any other planet. Earth was a filthy, disgusting planet in his eyes full of moronic humans who were needlessly rude to him. He had once awaited the day that he would cause it’s destruction and finally be free of the horrendous planet. 

And then someone got in his way, a rather large-headed someone. No one else could see through his disguise, but this kid could and he remembered the panic he felt the first day of earthen skool only to feel a sense of relief when the other kids just called him ‘crazy’.  
Zim had nearly regretted his decision to attend earthen skool, thinking it was the best  
way to blend in. He was relieved to know he did make the right decision, everyone thought he was just some normal kid. 

But despite the fact everyone else mostly ignored him (or bullied him when they weren’t ignoring him), Dib had given him more attention than anyone else has in his entire life. And it once annoyed him to no end that Dib wouldn’t leave him alone. His mission would’ve gone far more smoothly if Dib wasn’t there always interfering, ruining so many of his plans.

And yet what Zim never expected was the fact he would come to almost...enjoy it. Everytime he sat in his lab, scheming up something evil he always thought, “I wonder what Dib is going to do to stop me this time?” And it wasn’t out of annoyance but...excitement.

Zim had grown to love it so much that he had spent so much time thinking of new ways to torture Dib. He was going to make him suffer, or at least that’s what he thought he was doing. The longer he kept up with these games between him and Dib the more it felt more like “teasing” than anything else.

And then came the moments where Zim realized he needed Dib’s help. It had felt so humiliating, to think he needed someone else’s help, let alone his enemy. But when he realized there was no other way around this he gave in. He expected to dread every moment where Dib aided him, but he didn’t. He actually enjoyed it. Admittingly they did make a great team when they did things like stop Tak. And they did have to work together to free themselves from dib’s nightmare world. He would’ve never been able to do it on his own.

It had once confused Zim why the other kids often spoke about him and Dib as if they were friends. Even Professor Membrane had done the same thing. He remembered the day he met Professor Membrane, sitting in the kitchen, and he had referred to Dib as “his friend”. It made him feel disgusted, knowing he considered no one a friend let alone Dib. Why wasn’t it clear to people that him and Dib were enemies, it should’ve been obvious. And yet it didn’t stop Zim from thinking about it more.

Zim never expected the fact that when Dib was gone that he would miss him. He wasn’t supposed to miss him, he was supposed to be glad, and yet he had only felt crushed. Even when he hid in a toilet for months, he kept feeling tempted to leave, just so he could be fighting Dib again, even if it meant ruining his plan.

And Zim had spent so long studying Dib so he could stop him. And he came to realize that he actually knew quite a lot about Dib, more than anyone else in his life. And it always came as a shock to Zim to realize Dib knew a lot about him. In a way it was actually nice since Dib bothered to learn more about him than just that he was a “defective” or the “weird kid” which everyone else seemed to think of him as. 

Zim had learned early that Dib was different from the others of his species’, and it fascinated him. He might’ve been rather overly obsessed with the paranormal but he wasn’t a moron. And he knew that his sister despised him and he might’ve tried to team up with her to stop Dib if it wasn’t for the fact that his sister frightened even him. 

It was funny, in a way, when Zim started constructing a plan to stop Dib from stopping him that he started thinking more about Dib. He had known that Dib had cared about him enough that if he disappeared he would still be there watching. He knew the person who had a lot of influence in his life and had the most control over what he could do was his father so of course, he should replace his father. And then he realized Dib would probably expect a father to be caring. So he made a father that was. 

But then Zim started wondering what would a caring father look for Dib? Perhaps he would make him his favorite food. But what was Dib’s favorite food? And then he remembered all the details he knew about Dib’s father, how he was a man of science and that he always insisted they were friends. So a clone, Zim thought, should be the same. But what should this clone father say about how Dib felt about Zim? Love of course, because everyone should love Zim.

Even your nemesis. Especially your nemesis.

Zim didn’t have to tell Dib what was wrong when he realized the Tallest weren’t coming. And Dib didn’t have to stand there and compare his Tallests to his dad. And he began to wonder, is this what having parents was like? Having someone you just wish would appreciate you instead of making you feel like a disappointment? And was that the thing he and Dib had in common?

Dib coughed as he looked up at the windowsill. “Even after all these years you still have that stupid clown puppy you stole from my house.” Zim looked at it, the ceramic clown puppy staring at them. He wasn’t sure why he kept it, other than the fact it reminded him of their past.

Dib reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and said, “Just be glad that we got to spend all those years together.” Dib reached out his hand and stroked the side of Zim’s head. 

“But I want to spend so many more with you,” Zim said as he reached out and held onto Dib. “Why must Zim feel so pained?” He frowned and clung onto Dib. He placed his head on his chest, if only to hear his heart still beat. 

Zim didn’t feel ready. How could he be? There were still many more years to his life and he only wanted Dib to be there for them. But why did he never even think of the fact Dib would eventually pass? Oh how blissfully ignorant he was.

Zim remembered when he learned just how short human lives were. When he first landed on earth he had expected someone like Dib to have lived decades, not twelve years. He had assumed it must be that earth just took longer to revolve around the sun but that wasn’t the case. Irk years weren’t that much shorter. Humans really did just age quickly.

When Zim had arrived he had already many decades and he was still far from being fully matured. He had once taken pride in the fact that he had far more experience than the other children, having lived longer and undergone many years of training. How pathetic, he once thought, that the children were not ready yet to become soldiers like he was.

But he didn’t care about any of that now. Now he just wished humans lived longer so he could be with Dib. And all those years of training meant nothing when he had long since given up on his mission.

Zim remembered how he had grown up alongside Dib, though perhaps Dib matured a lot faster than he did. Dib had also grown a lot taller, to his annoyance. Irkens stopped growing far earlier in their maturity than humans apparently. Though Zim did grow an inch, which he had gloated to about Dib who was already a foot taller than him at that point.

And the longer Zim spent on earth, the longer he spent not fulfilling his mission. But perhaps as time passed and Zim now knowing the Tallest were not coming for him, the less he seemed to care about his mission. What was the point if he had truly disappointed the Tallest? And what he done to disappoint them?

The more he thought about it the more he began to wonder if the Tallest were ever proud of him. But he kept shoving the thought away for he hated how it made him feel. It was easier to pretend that wasn’t the case, because he needed to believe it wasn’t. 

But Dib, at least Dib had always been there. Even if the Tallests didn’t respond to his brilliant plans, Dib did. But then he realized he didn’t need to create elaborate plans he hardly felt motivated to carry out to get Dib’s attention. Even a simple tease caught Dib’s attention so that was what he did.

And so the skool was often filled with Zim’s and Dib’s banter, but as time passed the banter felt less “hostile” and more “playful”. It was no longer Zim telling Dib that he stinked because he wanted him to feel insulted, but rather he just wanted to see Dib respond to him. He just wanted to know someone was out there still caring enough to give him attention when no one else did.

And maybe it was true as Zim grew older that his need to be the center of attention lessoned. It was enough to just have Dib. And he remembered when he started feeling these strange feelings in his squeedlyspooch when he started thinking about Dib. He had spent so long trying to  
figure it out while he watched as Dib started acting stranger than usual.

Zim remembered when Dib stood there and said to him, “Okay, I know this is going to sound weird, but I have two tickets to this movie but I can’t ask my sister because I sort of used the last slice of her pizza in an experiment to see if I could summon PigGoatMan which didn’t end up working but that’s irrelevant...anyway do you want to go instead?”

It was the first time Dib had ever asked Zim to do something as a genuine friend-thing. He was left speechless for a moment before nodding his head and saying, “I suppose I could watch whatever this movie humans have made.”

But to Zim’s surprise, he actually enjoyed the movie, because Dib was there and he wanted nothing more to have these moments with him. It wasn’t long before Zim started asking Dib to hang out with him. He had come up with every reason he could think of. At first it was just what he thought normal human friends would do. But eventually it turned into things like stargazing.

And when they looked up at the stars that night, Zim reached for Dib’s hand, just wondering what would happen and to his surprise Dib took it. And when Zim said, “I love you, Dib-stink.” Dib responded with, “I love you too, space boy.”

And then there was the night of prom when they had their first kiss and it just felt like a release of everything Zim had been feeling. But it was just the beginning.

They had done everything from going on paranormal hunts only to run home screaming to Zim finding a way to cheat at a game because he was frustrated that Dib won a round. They had spent so many nights just talking as they cuddled. 

And then one night Zim knelt beside Dib and said to him, “As customary among you humans, I wish to ask that you become irken property and be mine.”

“Uh, that’s a weird way to say ‘will you marry me’ but yes,” Dib said. 

“You remembered when we got married?” Dib asked as he held onto Zim. Zim looked up at him and wiped his eyes. It didn’t even feel that long ago that they had. “You showed up to prom in a dress and in a tux at our wedding. Only you could pull both of those off.” He smiled. 

“Zim always looks good,” Zim said with a grin.

“Gir also managed to get in the frosting, which is just funny now. At least minimoose just seemed to be helping.” He twirled Zim’s antenna. “It didn’t even take long before we decided to have kids. I think you were just eager to have smeets.” 

Perhaps it was true, Zim had long since had a desire to raise something like him. He was rather insistant to Dib that they used cloning so they could have children. And when they were finally created, Zim held both of them in his arms, excited to know that he had finally become a father.

He was rather convinced that he was the better parent. He told them all about Irk and what it was like. They had PAKs, thanks to Zim’s engineering, but without the control brains they wouldn’t have the information he had when he was born. He also told them of his genius plans and of conquest, much to Dib’s annoyance. Dib would eventually have his turn and he would tell them about the paranormal, and they would stare up at him, fascinated. 

Eventually they would grow up and attend skool. Dib kept arguing with Zim over what made a “good disguise” for the children. It seemed it wasn’t long at all before they had grown up and started living adult lives. Mary had decided to be an engineer while Dob continued to study the paranormal like Dib.

Dib coughed, but this time it sounded far worse. “They grew up fast didn’t they,” Dib said. “Even with the irken genetics.” He looked up towards the ceiling. “And now I’m tired.”

Zim held onto Dib’s wrists. “Don’t fall asleep, Zim demands you stay awake.”

“It will be okay, Zim, I promise,” Dib said. 

“You get to have me for all your life. I won’t have that same pleasure, human.” 

“But you will see our kids for longer. Please…” Dib turned towards Zim. “...don’t be sad.”

Zim let go of Dib’s wrist and fell on top of him. He didn’t want to lose him. Not now. Why didn’t he think of something to extend Dib’s life? Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he could…

But just then Dib closed his eyes. It was clear from his breathing that he was struggling. Zim grabbed him and tried to shake him but nothing did. And it wasn’t long before Dib became motionless. 

And so Zim remained in the room for hours, staying by Dib’s side even though it was too late. He tried to think of anything to reverse this but he couldn’t. He had to just accept Dib was no more. His heart felt heavy as he realized there would be no more moments together. It was just him. 

But at least he had the children, though what he really wanted was Dib too. 

But as the decades past, Zim kept his promise and did what he could for his children. Eventually Zim would grow old too. And when the end of his days came he wasn’t sad about it. He just held onto the old picture of his family and thought to himself, finally, he can join Dib. 

Zim really did land on the right planet. Being defective, getting banished, having the Tallest abandon him, he would do it all over again just to be with Dib. 

With billions of creatures in the universe, somehow he managed to find the right person. Perhaps, the universe always finds a way.


End file.
